Although the history of studies of adenosine effects on a living organism is 65 years long, the major developments within this field occurred within the past few years. Due to vastly improved techniques and availability of new, highly selective agents acting at all adenosine receptor subtypes, adenosine research entered into a period of explosive growth, and attained a new position of prominence within neuroscience. Based upon the current knowledge of the effect of adenosine receptor stimulation on the activity of the brain, adenosine-based therapies have been proposed for a variety of major cerebral disorders, e.g., stroke, epilepsy, Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases, schizophrenia, and a number of other cerebral pathologies. Presently, an intense industrial effort takes place worldwide aimed at a practical implementation of these concepts. Despite such progress, the concept of adenosine-based treatment of brain disorders still remains alien to a very large segment of clinical neuroscience. The symposium on "Brain, Adenosine, and Therapeutics: the Present and the Future" is the first scientific meeting ever to address its agenda specifically to the problems of adenosine-brain interactions, and to the analysis of their practical utilization. The main goal of the symposium is to summarize the current "state of the art", and, based upon this summary, to outline directions for future efforts in basic and clinical research. The symposium is directed chiefly at the clinical audience whose participation in all previous meetings on adenosine has been neglected. It is hoped that a goal oriented interaction of the world's leading researchers assembled at the symposium, and representing basic, clinical and industrial neuroscience will provide new insights and impetus to the field, and result in acceleration of its entry into clinical practice.